Wednesday Western: 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' (1962)

After six weeks of Wednesday Westerns, we have yet to discuss one of the genre’s most important figures: John Wayne. Mostly, I’ve wanted to time it right. There will be a lot — a lot — of John Wayne in the future of this series.

Overwhelmingly, people have urged me to examine three movies: "The Searchers," "Stagecoach," and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

I need more time on the first two, reading and watching everything I can possibly find — scripts, short stories, interviews, documentaries, analysis, you name it. So far, my approach has been to watch each of these as many times as possible, a dozen times, then write 5,000 words about it, then scrap it, saying, “There’s too much to write about in this movie,” then, after a period of brief resignation, go back and try again.

There’s no way I could even come close to analyzing the entirety of what John Ford is offering in each of these films. But a man has to try.

Starting with "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." Whenever I meet fellow Western fans, this is often their favorite.

It is about as beautiful as a film gets. So, if you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading, and go see it right this instant.

Where are his boots?

The film is one of the three Westerns to feature both Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, who were lifelong friends and political allies — an alliance that we’ll examine more deeply along the way. As you’ll see throughout this series, I hold Jimmy Stewart with as much (or more) esteem as John Wayne. The “more” is what could get me in trouble for that statement.

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" also marked the first time that John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart worked together on a film. Wayne was 54; Stewart, 53. They would both star in "How the West Was Won," but not together, then in "The Shootist," John Wayne’s final movie and Jimmy Stewart’s final Western.

The New Yorker’s Richard Brody described “Liberty Valance” as “the most romantic of all Westerns." Like much of what Brody pushes, this statement is idiotic and fad-minded. “Liberty Valance” has so much more spine than that. It is brash and dynamic and, most of all, unapologetic.

"Toxic masculinity" be damned. This is a film that celebrates male virtue. While also appealing to women.

The film opens with Senator Ransom Stoddard (Stewart) and his wife, Hallie, returning home to a town called Shinbone for the funeral of a penniless farmer.

The narrative structure gets adventurous from here, more adventurous than many Westerns, which tend to abide by the “just tell the damn story” approach.

All the John Ford humor is there: lines like, “Pompey, go find Doc Willoughby. If he’s sober, bring him back.” The shifty undertaker, the proud old Swedish couple. The loveably inept marshal who can’t think of the word “jurisdiction” bears the wonderfully memorable name Link Appleyard (John Ford mainstay Andy Devine).

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" repeatedly proves that Westerns are literary by nature, if only by their depth and range of literary devices.

Ford is known for shooting his pictures on location -- most famously in Monument Valley. But this one he shot largely on soundstages. The studio setting imbues the film with a certain closeness befitting a Western with so much political storytelling on the surface.

Which is to say, it feels like a stage play. In some ways, this is a risky approach for a Western. In other ways, the dramatic model is always at the fore: Isn’t a camera just an auditorium for a moving stage? (I’ll dive further into this concept in my upcoming article devoted to the Cowboy Peach levels of the recent Nintendo Mario release Princess Peach: Showtime!)

Ford also chose to shoot the film in black and white, despite having embraced color in recent films. As he put it, “In black and white, you've got to be very careful. You've got to know your job, lay your shadows in properly, get your perspective right, but in color, there it is. You might say I'm old fashioned, but black and white is real photography."

Supposedly, the film’s black and white had more to do with budgetary stubbornness from Paramount, which in turn led to tensions between Ford and John Wayne. Ford was peeved that, in all the cuts, Wayne’s salary was not affected, nor did Ford have a choice in casting him. This is all Western lore by now.

By the time production began, Ford was supposedly bored — done with the entire project.

On set, he needled the actors (except for Stewart), especially John Wayne. He heckled The Duke constantly — for not having made it as a football player and, more ruthlessly, for not having served during WWII (Stewart had a decorated tour as a bomber pilot). Woody Strode characterized the set as miserable.

When Ford finally lashed out at Stewart, Wayne told him, “Well, welcome to the club, I'm glad you made it."

Lower still, there’s the narrative complexity of the story, evinced by its playfulness. There are Easter eggs all throughout "Liberty Valance." On the soundtrack alone, we have “My Darling Clementine,” a reference to Ford's 1946 film of the same name.

Sound advice, marshal

Dorothy M. Johnson’s short story “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is the basis for the movie. Both versions of the story are uniquely important and equally deserving of our full attention.

The main difference between John Ford’s film and the short story it is based on concerns the character of Ranse — in the book, he’s Ransom “Foster” instead of “Stoddard.” In Johnson’s version of the story, Ranse is petulant, “a man who never wanted to go anywhere,” a veritable nobody.

Short-story Ranse has to fight to lower himself into humility.

The reveal that Hallie can’t read is much stronger, and more creative, in the film. Oddly enough, much of the storytelling is better in the film.

Ford captures so many tiny but vital details, like Lee Marvin’s portrayal of Liberty Valance’s strut, presumably from Dorothy Johnson's description of how Valance, “burly and broad-shouldered, walked stiff-legged, with his elbows bent.”

One benefit to the story is that it offers you direct access to Ransom’s thoughts, fears, doubts, and confidences. This is particularly useful during the hand-sweating buildup to the shootout on the empty street.

She describes how Ransom “looked into his own mind and realized, This man is afraid, this Ransom Foster. But nobody else knew it. He walks and is afraid, but he is no coward. Let them remember that. Let Hallie remember that.”

Or this great line: “The gun in [Ranse’s] hand exploded, and so did the whole world. Two shots to my one, he thought — his last thought for a while.”

There are some delightful minor details unique to the story: “The trial was held three weeks after the shooting, in the hotel room where Ranse lay in bed. The charge was disturbing the peace; he pleaded guilty and was fined ten dollars.”

And of course there’s no way to recreate the paint can scene.

The use of “tenderfoot” also appears in the short story.

The dynamic between our two heroic foils is roughly the same, although, in the short story, both characters are nastier and less enjoyable.

James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck wrote the script, the final script for both men, two great writers we’ll examine in an entry about the influence of the Saturday Evening Post.

Stand and deliver!

The typical whine from modern critics is that the film’s final act is a letdown. This claim is outrageous. That last third is satisfying to no end.

A reviewer for the New York Times described it as "an obvious, overlong, and garrulous anticlimax." Although a more recent New York Times review hailed "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" as "the greatest American political movie.”

Roger Ebert described it as "the most pensive and thoughtful" of Ford’s Westerns.

Spaghetti Western mastermind Sergio Leone considered it his favorite movie by John Ford, commending Ford for his indulgence of pessimism.

Underneath it still is angst, sure, but also humor. Like Dutton Peabody, the boozy newspaperman who starts to lose it when John Wayne’s character closes the bar to hold a political rally: “Now gimme a drink will ya? Just a beer! A beer’s not drinking!”

'Education is the basis of law and order'

Westerns boast some of the nastiest, evilest, ugliest villains ever made. This holds true even with literature in the Western genre, like Cormac McCarthy’s Judge Holden in "Blood Meridian," a man darker than the devil himself.

This also allows us to properly delegate what is and isn’t barbaric.

Lee Marvin plays Liberty Valance, and he does a mean, dark job. He’s superlatively villainous from the start and yet somehow gets worse with each appearance.

His weapon of choice is a cat o' nine tails, and he uses it on whoever he pleases.

In their first meeting, Valance and Stoddard establish the legal dynamic that courses through the entire film.

Valance and his gang rob a stagecoach with a young Stoddard, fresh out of law school. When Stoddard stands up for a fellow passenger, Valance flares with his characteristic violence.

He beats Stoddard, then begins rifling through Stoddard’s belongings — law books, mostly. When Stoddard lifts himself up, Valance lowers his black robber’s handkerchief, says, “Lawyer, huh? I’ll teach you law: Western law.”

Then he whips him till his minions pull him away.

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" captures the last days of the Old West, the awkward transition from lawlessness to formal order. And, as Cicero observes, “While power resides in the people, authority rests with the Senate."

It’s no coincidence that our villain’s name is “Liberty,” given the film’s constant examination of the rule of law. “Liberty” of course is an ironic name for such a violent authoritarian. Ironic partly because there is no “liberty” in authoritarianism, because there is no law within chaos. And where there’s no law, there’s no freedom.

After a sloppy fight at the diner, where Stoddard lives and works, Dutton Peabody jokes that Stoddard scared off Valance with “the spectacle of law and order here, risin' up out of the gravy and the mashed potatoes.” And I love Peabody — he’s a kind of Mary Magdalene figure in this story.

Equally, though, this sort of snideness gets booted. Like Peabody’s attempt at schooling Hallie on “the proprieties concerning the cutlery. How many times have I told you: The fork goes to the left of the plate and the knife goes —”

Her response captures the declarative, humble spirit of the Western: “What’s a matter, you superstitious or something? Well, what are you gonna have to eat?”

In disbelief, he says, “The usual.”

As she’s walking away, she rattles off, “Steak, beans, pahtaytahs, and deep-dish apple pie.”

There’s no need for smug diatribes about “proprieties.”

Angels of the lawless frontier

As the local men meet to elect delegates to the upcoming statehood convention, drunken newsman Dutton Peabody is dismayed to learn that the bar is closed. "You can blame your lawyer friend," rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) tells Peabody. "He says that's one of the 'fundamental laws of democracy.' No exception."

Peabody, still desperate for a drink, balks, “No exceptions for the working press? Why, that's carrying democracy much too far!”

This use of “exception” is extraordinary. Because, as the person who determines exceptions, Stoddard is the sovereign, or, in the language of Westerns, the lawman.

Stoddard and Valance serve as mimetic doubles, equals in the fight for total power, leading, in this case, to the institution or destruction of law.

For the first half of the film, Stoddard refuses violence steadfastly. His approach to confronting Liberty Valance is academic.

“Gun? I don’t want to kill him, I want to put him in jail.”

“Oh,” says Wayne’s character, gun in hand, “I know those law books mean a lot to you, but not out here. Out here a man settles his own problems.”

Stoddard observes, “You’re saying exactly what Liberty Valance said.” Stoddard represents the new rule of law, while Tom Doniphon serves as the figure of the rule of law as it stood in the West, where violence solved violence.

Right on cue, Appleyard appears in the doorway, hands in pants. Doniphon quips, “Well, here comes Mr. Law and Order himself.”

Appleyard proceeds to admit that “the jail’s only got one cell. And the lock’s broke. And I sleep in it.”

Stoddard and Valance thrive with the tension of progress versus catastrophe. Because — and, if you haven’t watched the movie yet, for God’s sake do it now — what does it say that the good guy with a gun is the only one capable of saving law and order?

Take her easy there

The word “pilgrim” never appears in the Dorothy M. Johnson short story the film is based on. In the film, it’s everywhere. From their first encounter, John Wayne refers to Stoddard as “pilgrim.”

The pilgrim understands that nowhere is safe. Pilgrims' devotion to ritual separates them from tourists, who have time constraints, who want superficial, who can’t stick around, who maybe just need a break from their home, but who are ultimately only performing.

Meanwhile, pilgrims belong to some part of the Supernatural — deities, icons, gods, God, and they hold contempt for the elites who demand transparency for everyone but themselves.

The pilgrim devotes himself to a voyage to salvation, the tourist hungers for indulgence. The pilgrim has a destination, usually sacred. The tourist has a series of Nows that lead him to spectacles.

Your job, while watching "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," is to decide who is who. It's a struggle that emerges poetically in a scene that includes one of the most iconic lines in the entire genre: “This is the West, sir: When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”